Blog: Film festivals

Welcome to SYS’s Six-Figure Film Festival and Screenplay Contest!

The Film Festival

This year we’re spearheading a new initiative to assure that all filmmakers get exceptional value from our festival…

100% of the films that get accepted will be screened in Los Angeles at the festival in October. If your film is NOT accepted, we will refund 100% of your submission fee, removing all risk from the filmmakers. If your film is not accepted you pay nothing, if it is accepted you get a screening in Los Angeles. It’s that simple.

From founder and filmmaker Ashley Scott Meyers: “As a filmmaker myself I’ve been incredibly disappointed with the film festival circuit lately. Most of the time I’ve sent money for submissions, gotten back a half-baked rejection letter or worse, been accepted to a festival but still didn’t get to screen my film. With SYS’s festival we aim to remove all financial risk from the filmmakers by only charging the films we accept and screening all the films in a high quality theater here in Los Angeles.”

All accepted feature films will receive 50 complimentary tickets to their screening. All short films will receive 10 complimentary tickets to their screening.

This festival is an IMDb qualifying festival.

The festival will take place October 6th - October 15th 2023 in Los Angeles.

We will be screening both shorts and features. We are looking for fiction, documentary, experimental, animation and all genres of filmmaking which can entertain, inspire and challenge us. But all entered films must have been produced for less than $1million USD ($1,000,000).

We’ll be giving out awards in all major categories. You do NOT have to pay multiple submission fees to be eligible in each category. Every accepted film will be eligible in every applicable category.

The Screenplay Contest

What’s this contest all about?

Do you have the next great low budget screenplay? SYS is trying to find great screenplays in any genre that could be produced for less than $1,000,000USD (one million). In other words, scripts that could be produced on six-figures or less.

Our goal with this screenplay contest is simple: find the best low budget screenplays on the planet and present them to the industry, which will hopefully lead to options, sales, and productions.

We’ve assembled a great group of seasoned writers, directors, and producers (see list on our website) to help judge the entries, as well as a great group of readers to handle the first round of reads.

How’s it going to work?

Each script submitted will be read by a minimum of two professional readers in the first round. The scripts that stand out in the first round will move into the second round (roughly 20% of all screenplays entered). The second round screenplays will be vetted further with more assessments from the SYS readers. The top scripts from the second round will be selected and moved into the quarter finals, where we will pitch those screenplays to the industry judges. Finally, after all the scripts have been graded by the judges, we will choose a winner and make the announcement in October 2023.

How will scripts be graded?

Each professional reader will fill out an SYS Script Assessment form for each screenplay that they read. The SYS script assessment is a quick way for the reader to grade the screenplay. Each screenplay will be graded based on seven key criteria: Ability to be produced for less than $1M, Concept, Characters, Structure, Marketability, Tone, and Craft. For a small additional charge ($10) you can receive the two assessments from the first round readers (and possibly a 3rd assessment from a second round reader).